Junior

My name is Junior I am a South Pacific Samoan and part Chinese but mostly Samoan. At home my family members speak to me in Samoan and I reply back in Samoan sometimes. When I was little I was not scared to speak Samoan in public because it was the only language I knew. I went to a Samoan preschool called Tino e Tusi. Through my preschool and primary school years I have learnt the A,B,C to understanding words like comfirming or multiple languages. Now that I am all grown up Im still not embarrassed to speak my own language in public exept for when relatives or Samoan friends come over because if ask my mum or dad something in private I know that they will ask what is she or he doing and my mum or dad will tell them what I just told them and sometimes it's something personal.

Zoe

How we celebrate Christmas in India!

CLOSED- all schools are closed for 10 to 14 days for the Christmas season, not a second earlier and not a second later as all the Christian families start pre-paring for Christmas from around the end of November.

We start the Christmas season by writing and sending cards to all our friends and family from all over the world. Then we get to the fun part making all the Christmas SWEETS! ! !
From Chirstmas cake, to fudge, custard, and chocolate!
BUT WAIT ! ! ! That's only the beginning.

Then we would call the tailor to make us some clothes for Christmas, after we would go out and buy some gifts for all our family and friends. Within the days before Christmas we would decorate our homes and also help decorate the church. We'd also go Christmas caroling with people form within the parish and go for Christmas parties.

As Christmas got closer we'd prepare a Christmas lunch; go and visit family and friends and of course we'd all help to decorate the Christmas tree and put the star on top.

On Christamas eve we'd go for midnight mass, but because the were so many people; would have to be outside, and the on Christmas morning we'd all open up our presents then we would all have lunch together! And that is how we celebrate Christmas in India!
By Zoe Rodricks

Mikaela

There are so many unique cultures in the world. And all of them are special. There is one culture that I love. The Filipino culture. Of course there's only one Phillipines and I'm not in it. But I continue my culture at home. My Mum and Dad both come from the Phillipines so they speak Tagalog and English to me. We sometimes do your ordinary daily things differently. Like how we cook our food; how we wash the dishes and more. See, lots of cultures do things differently and that's what makes them so interesting and special. I love my culture and I'm proud of being a Filipino.

Bobby Jo

Hi I am called called Bobby Jo. I was born in New Zealand but my Mum comes from Cebu in the Phillippines. My Mum can speak Tagalog and she does when she's on the phone. I know some words in Tagalog, but I like to speak English.

Zoren

Hello kamusta which means how are you. In my house we speak Tagalog.We have an accent of batagas which is my Mum's home town. In Filipino traditional beliefs are to make loud sounds at New Year to get rid of the bad spirit. And the traditional things around Christmas, We celebrate with a party for every suburb, And for rich people they usaully have butlers and maids. The traditional people recite the Apostles Creed instead of the Nicene Creed, We go to Mass every Sunday and we celebrate black Nazareno. In our house we have traditional things. We pray where ever we go. We have to have good grades etc. In our culture the most important things is that God is first. When I was young I was never ashamed of my culture because our culture is one of the happiest cultures.

Gabriel

My Mum sometimes speaks to me in Spanish and she's from Chile so we celebrate Chiles independence day which includes lots of dancing and eating. We celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, opening preasents at midnight and also Christmas dinner. On Christmas Day we eat the left overs and yummy things all day and watch videos all day. New Years Eve we have family dinner and dance all night and in Chile everyone goes to the market to eat, in the morning right after the party. We are all football fans; we all support South America no matter what but we are also loyal to the All Blacks. We always great each other with a hug or a kiss. We are a very social family; we love to talk, dance eat and debate. I have always been proud of my Spanish/Latin/Kiwi culture which makes me a Chiwi.

Shweta

Hi my name is Shweta Nand.My culture is Hindu (Indian). My Mum and Dad come from Fiji where they grew up and learnt how to speak Hindi. At home they talk to each other in Hindi, but when they talk to me in Hindi I frequently respond to them in English. In our culture we have so many different things compared to many other cultures; for example we aren't allowed to eat beef, pork, ham, bacon because cows and pigs are sacred to us, so we can only eat chicken and lamb. We aren't allowed to live with boyfriends before marriage. On Mondays and Thursdays we have a special prayer ritual and so we can't eat meat. At weddings we can't cook meat. At funerals we have to wear white and if a person has died in your family then we aren't allowed to cook in the house and so friend's and relatives prepare food for the family. In our religion we pray to many Gods who have different names but we still believe that 1 God is all Gods.

Tsuyoshi

On Sunday in Samoa, everybody goes to church. that's why people work from Monday to Friday and Saturday is preparation day for sabbath. That means business and shops must close at 12 o'clock on Saturdays. Food/umu/hang will be done before sunrise on Sunday mornings so everyone can go to church.

Martin

Hello Hola my name is Martin Lopez.My culture is from the country of Chile. In my culture we are more family based. A normal Saturday I would be at my grandma's house with the rest of my awesome family. I moved to NZ so I could have more options in life. I love soccer because my Dad and Chile are in love with the sport. CHILE FOREVER!!!!!

Isra

Talofa Lava! I'm Isra Ah Kuoi, and I'm a proud Samoan! My parents are Samoan, my Dad's parents come from Samoa and the village of Savaia and the island of Upolu. My Mum's Dad is from Samoa and the village of Lotofaga and the the island of Upolu and my Mum's Mum is from Samoa and the village of Sataua and the island of Sava'ii. Every night before tea we pray the rosary in Samoan usually the highest person in the house would lead us. Eg.(Chiefs) In our house it's my Grandad, he is the fourth highest Chief in his village. After that we say a Samoan prayer before we eat. If we have guests while we say the rosary then we have to wear an Ie Lava Lava. (Including the guys!)

Now that's all I know about Samoan culture, but imagine lists of other Samoan traditions, woah!
Tofa Soi Fua!

Sam

My name is Sam and I'm Japanese and I'm also English and Irish. My culture is different because i speak a different language and because of the interesting and weird things that my culture does. In my family we usually have a different breakfast its not like cereal we eat naato a traditional meal made of soybeans and its usually made with rice. My Dad every morning has a breakfast of rice naato miso soup and fish.Japanese are a very advanced and complicated it also has a very large population with over 120 million people It's a very complex country and it's very well known for its technology and I'm glad that I'm from there.

Olivia

I am Olivia Cassin and I am an English girl with a quarter italian I have decendants of Irish Scottish Spainish and a little bit of German. In my mum's ancestry I am english Irish scottish and German. My Dad's ancestry is itailian English Irish Scottish and Spainish. We speak English at home but we will get a little bit of itailian words in. That is my culture and I am proud of it.

Claudia

My name is Claudia Cassin and cultures are all unique, special, and different in their own ways. Some cultures may believe that theirs is the only way to live by, but for others this couldn't be more far from the truth. In my ancestry there is Irish, Scottish, English, and German from my Mum's descendants. In my Dad's descendants there is Italian, Scottish, Irish, and a little bit of Spainish somewhere because that is where my last name Cassin comes from. In our household us kids are a quarter Italian and dad is half. We say the odd phrase in Italian and that is something we do as a family. Some cultures today have changed to keep up with modernized world all though there are still isolated and rare tribes out there.

My Culture.Maria

Hello my name is Maria and I'm a Filipino. Both my parents are Filipinos but they both have a different background, I'm not going to talk about that today, but I am going to talk about the Philippine culture. Even though my family has moved to New Zealand we still do things the "Filipino way". For example:
-We pray the whole rosary every night.
-Every week we go to the grave yard and light a candle for the dead.
-When people leave the house while eating we turn every plate on the table twice, clockwise to keep them safe.
Little things like these mean a lot to Filipinos because that is our culture and it will always be.

By: Maria Infante

Alice

My name is Alice Sparks. I am the only full new Zealand European in my class. I have lived in New Zealand my whole life. My family and I are strong Roman Catholics with many different home traditions. We say an impromptu grace every night and we all go to church every week. Our family interest is karate which we all do together as a family. We all have our meals and discussions together and are very social. We are not country different but we are very different from other families because of our beliefs, interests, and our family aspects.

Daniel

Hi there, my name is Daniel Hoolahan. I am from England, Manchester and in Manchester I live in a smallish city called Bury. Bury when I think of that name my life in England comes up. But after all this I am living in NewZealand now. I am a big fan of sport and when the Rugby comes on, there will be a game that will be NewZealand, or England. My Dad is yelling COME ON LADS !! And I sit there thinking NZ,England,NZ England. As I came to NZ I have heard, your accent is so awesome. Or someone trying to talk like me ( but they epicly fail). It can get pretty annoying. And I see how NZ talk differently as well.

Room five"s vibrant cultures

My name is Harvey and I'm a Filipino.
Do you speak another language when you get home from work or school rather than English? Well let me tell you something, I myself speak another language after school. At home I don't just speak English but I can speak tagalog too. You know when you're from a different country and your mum is like "blah blah blah!" to your friend, and your like "NO" because it's too embrassing. Since I arrived here in New Zealand I'm still embrassed of my mum, I know it's my mum but you know it's hard.

Role playing

Claudia, Zoe, Isra, junior, and tsuyoshi are in a problem and don't know what to do. What will they do in the end.

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Role playing a situation.

Olivia, Mikaela, Naomi, Zoren, Harvey, and Daniel role playing a dilemma. What will they do.

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Role playing.

Alice, Shweta, Maria, Martin, and Gabriel role playing a situation to find out a solution.

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Week 9

Welcome to the beginning of another week. It wasn't much fun waking up to a frost this morning when it seemed an hour earlier than usual but won't it be lovely to have a longer evening.
This week we are continuing with the Positive Puberty topic. We are discussing the issues of teasing,peer pressure,the influence the media has on teenagers and our religious and cultural beliefs and the effect they have on growing up in New Zealand society.
I have also sent a note home with Music Festival details and a reminder for those of you who have not yet paid for your tickets. Please get the money to school as soon as possible so we can square our accounts.
In English we are writing narratives in the first person based around a situation where friends have a falling out or are witness to bullying. This is of course to assess not only writing skills but problem solving skills we're talking about in topic.
I hope you all have a wonderful week,
God Bless

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Mathletics Whizz kids

Some of our Year 7 and 8 students working on level 5+ maths using Mathletics.


- Posted by Mrs Bradley

All Black Day.

Here we are supporting the All Blacks before they take on France tomorrow night. GO THE ALL BLACKS!!!!!!!!










- Posted by Claudia Cassin

St Marys practicing one of their Music Festival songs. The song is called A Te Tarakihi (the cicada)

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Term 3 week 8

Welcome to another week. Thank you to all of those who supported our school at our special mass yesterday. It was wonderful to see you all back at St Mary's. After a glorious weekend we're plunged into more rain but Room 5 are happy and looking forward to the last few weeks of this term.
Today we started our unit 'positive puberty'. I'd like to remind all parents that you are the first and best teachers of this very personal topic. The students are very enthusiastic if some what giggly at this early stage and I'm sure they would love to share some of the things we've discussed with you.
We are having a great deal of fun in maths solving relatively difficult algebraic equations. Everyone has risen to the occasion and there are great consolidating exercises and activities on the Mathletics site.
Tomorrow we have the visiting PE teacher coming to take a lesson with us. It's always great to have visitors to our school to give us new ideas and they always leave with such positive comments about our St Mary's students.Keep well and God bless you all.


- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Room 5 taking assembly

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

Mr Franks and Josephine playing the violin.

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

St Mary's school choir practising on the violin.

- Posted by Mrs Bradley

R.W.C

So many Rugby games gone; gone to Eden Park, Dunedin, Wellington, Nelson and so many more. Money lost by the unsold tickets to the big game. Money lost from building hotels. Joy and excitement from the canterburians not able to watch the epic games of Rugby. Nothing to do in Christchurch and our chance had come for the Rugby World Cup but our chance lost. These are all the important reasons why the people of Canterbury are so sad.

I am sad because i would have seen all these games live some or most of the city would have brought tickets and Christchurch would have got money but people got refunds. If you are addicted to Rugby then you now will have to fly to the place the games are being held.

We lose our brand new stadium and won’t get it back. Because of all this we don’t have any games to look forward to.

None of us knows the next big time when The Rugby World Cup will be held here. Again this is a reason for all of us. Rugby is New Zealand and i realise that. Do all of you understand that point that Rugby is New Zealand? I am not going to forget this, and i know why it wasn’t held here in Christchurch.

If we had The World Cup coming to Christchurch there would be chaos. But that chaos would have been supporting New Zealand with the cheering and screaming.

Rugby is good, amazing, and an exciting thing; ALL 48 BIG GAMES!! New Zealand can get to the final, and they will get to the end with Christchurch and The rest of New Zealand with their help and support, and win for us. If they do win the gold then i will realise that it does not matter that the games did not come to Christchurch even though it is sad they didn’t, but they won so we can wait till next time.

GO NEW ZEALAND!! So let’s enjoy what we have now

BY DANIEL J

Rugby World Cup : Christchurch Debate

Even though we’ve had 3 earthquakes and a couple of thousand aftershocks, we are still physically and mentally capable of hosting a few games. This is an essay of the Pros and Cons of CHCH hosting the Rugby World Cup.

Yes I know we’ve had a few rough shakes, but if you can’t handle a few small ones then you’re just not man enough for the game we call RUGBY! Not to mention half the All Blacks are from CHCH.

We would have heaps of responsibility but we would live up to the high expectations considering the circumstances we are in. I know our dear Bob Parker will protest that that happens.

Just think of it, all the fame and all the … FAME! We would have people coming from all over the globe just to come watch us little Christchurch! But with great fame comes with great responsibility.

However so much can go wrong like traffic problems and drunk idiots going around killing our innocent people. Then we would have a reputation of a out of control city. WOULD IT BE WORTH IT??

Think of all the money we would have to use just for the satisfaction of the multi cultural guests. We would have to fix all the bumps and holes for people to stop complaining.

But there is an upside to the games…THE AFTER PARTY!! Drinks, Food and the best of all the gir… I mean TV! But there is still so much that can go wrong.

Either way it would’ve have been so awesome to watch the All Blacks waste the rest of the world. Well I guess you can’t have everything.

Even though CHCH went from World Cup Heroes but ended up World Cup Zeroes, We should just go on with our lives and enjoy the RUGBY in HD

French Role Plays

We had so much fun making up role plays from some of the French phrases we've learnt. A pity some of the students got carted off to l'hopital.

Alice's cool opinion

              Rugby World Cup 2011

Rugby. World. Cup. All very important words. All together they come up with the biggest event in New Zealand for decades. The Rugby World Cup. The best place to hold it? Christchurch. But because of safety and of course big earthquake chances, all the games (including the semi final) that were going to be played in Christchurch have moved away.

Since 2006 my family and I have been looking forward to the world cup. In fact we missed the lions V.S All Blacks game 5 years ago because of it. For financial and time reasons, most of the Christchurch citizens cannot make it to the Auckland and Wellington games.

Aftershocks and the damage of the AMI stadium are the reasons why there are no games in Christchurch. Personally I think the All Blacks would be very useful in the event of an earthquake!

In a way it is a good thing that there are no games here in Christchurch because of things like drink-driving, drug-use, and out-of-control parties. Business would be booming in restraunts and hotels with rugby supporters. That would be good because of all the money loss in Christchurch also some people without jobs would be hired for this important event.

Lots of people in my class would be happy if it was in Christchurch because a lot of us love watching rugby live and it would be very exciting to be part of such an important event

My mum is sad that the RWC is not in chch because it drops the chance of her meeting Sonny-Bill Williams. My dad is sad because he loves watching rugby and one of his favourite things to do with us as a family is attend a match. Both my sisters are sad because they think it would be a great experience and they might get to be on T>V

Without the earthquakes or even just having the September earthquake would mean that right as I am writing this (or you are reading this) Christchurch would be surrounded by Irish, French, South African, and many others who were supporting their teams.

In conclusion I am to say that there are a lot of pros and cons to hosting a big sporting event like this. It is far to balanced for me to come to a decision as to whether I m glad of sad. I think we are lucky to hold it in our beautiful country. I would have liked to have seen a game but maybe something bigger might happen soon. I am excited to see how all the teams go and good luck to the All Blacks!

By Alice Sparks 2011-09-13 J

Shweta's RWC essay

Tuesday 13^th September 2011

    Rugby world Cup 2011

It’s nice to know that Auckland is being remembered by millions of people around the world due to the Rugby World Cup 2011. But I don’t think everyone’s happy with where the Rugby World Cup 2011 is being held. Well to be honest, I’m not.

I’m sad that the Rugby World Cup is being held in Auckland and not in Christchurch not because I’m jealous of Auckland but it’s because we would make more money, we could be known by so many people around the world, and more people would come to watch.

As well as that, travelling would be easier but then on the other hand, people from other countries who would want to watch the Rugby World Cup would have to travel overseas which would cost heaps of money, so one way or the other you’ll have to pay money.

I reckon that the Rugby World Cup 2011 should’ve been held in Christchurch (although travelling would be hard) because by making more money we could use that money for donating to sick people, it could help the Cantabrians who have lost their jobs, and along with that it could also help us to rebuild our city.

Whenever I hear people on news talking about the Rugby World Cup happening in Auckland and how they are enjoying it, I feel really bad inside because us Cantabrians have been going through a very tough time and I guess if we could have some entertainment our minds will be off from the stress the earthquake has given us.

If the Rugby World Cup 2011 could take place in Christchurch, there would be traffic, parties, people drinking, and heaps of noise, but I don’t think it’s bad because probably people would just want to celebrate, but also at the same time I think they should be able to control theirselves and not go all crazy.

By: Shweta Samantha Nand

I personally think that the Rugby World Cup should’ve been held in Christchurch because I think that the Cantabrians deserved it since, even though they went through such a hard time, they were still strong and standing on their feet cheering for their country.